POSTSCRIPT: THE ENGLISH MADRIGAL

Chapter:

CHAPTER 17 Commercial and Literary Music

Source:

MUSIC FROM THE EARLIEST NOTATIONS TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Both the music printing business and the cultivation of vernacular art music had a relatively slow start in England. The beginning,
splendidly signaled by the publication of XX. Songes in 1530, did not take hold. William Byrd, who with Thomas Tallis sought and received monopoly rights on music printing, turned
out to be an ineffectual or indifferent businessman. He did not publish even his own settings of English poetry until he had
turned his patent over to a printer-musician named Thomas East, who finally made a go of it. Apart from compositions for the
Anglican liturgy, Byrd’s vernacular settings can be found in two volumes printed by East in 1588 and 1589: Psalmes, sonets and Songs of sadness and pietie, and Songs of sundrie natures, some of gravitie, and others of myrth, fit for all companies and voyces. Most of the songs are grave and semireligious; they are mainly set for solo voice with instruments and show no interest
in the new directions being taken on the continent toward “literary” experiment.

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 17 Commercial and Literary Music. In Oxford University Press, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century. New York, USA.
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